A Message from Rabbi Rubinstein

March 2009

Change often occurs at a lumbering and inconsequential pace. Take for instance the focus of a vexing annoyance for me: the absence of signals for pedestrians in our synagogue’s neighborhood on Park Avenue from 46th-56th street. Pedestrians who cross Park Avenue are aware of the lack of signals, especially when they are on the middle island and do not know whether they can venture out on the second part of their crossing since they cannot see the traffic light hanging above. The inability to know whether it is safe to walk has resulted in an undue number of pedestrian accidents in the area.

Now, I had assumed that this anomaly was a matter of land-marking, what some people call the “hoity-toity” taste of the Park Avenue residents. But I just learned from a friend that the Walk Sign vacuum has nothing to do with style but with a long-time feud between the city and Metro-North Railroad over jurisdiction. If the city put in the poles to hold the pedestrian signs, it would be puncturing the ceiling of the railroad tunnel below. Safety for pedestrians means leaks on the tracks.

Apparently, an agreement between the city and the railroad was made in 2007, and the decades old feud was moving to solution. But I haven’t seen evidence of pedestrian signals.  Change comes slowly.

Yet, in other arenas of life, change happens (literally) at lightning speed. Being very ignorant about the ways our children are communicating, I took a virtual tour of the technological mechanisms they are using to be in touch with each other, including Facebook. I also explored some of the professional networking tools available online. I am told that our youth group and college students communicate with each other and the synagogue entirely through these websites. They don’t run off mimeograph stencils or send out flyers in the mail, the “traditional” style of youth group communication, and many of my generation refrain from accessing on-line community websites so as not to receive more communication from an ever expanding “virtual” community. Despite us, change comes instantaneously.

The synagogue is caught at the intersection between slow-changing constancy and fast moving technology, the most apparent example being the web casting of our worship services on our Web site. People who have never entered our building and our students who are away at college are accessing our Shabbat services on-line. We are hearing from them and often receive notes from Jews throughout the country who have made our web-cast part of their weekly Shabbat observances. Others who are not facile with computers are calling in, and listening to, services over the phone (1-888-758-7870; password 5992969).

Users of these technologies report that they are drawn by the spiritual connection, the music and the personal engagement they feel by listening in. They consider themselves part of the Central Synagogue community. This is a new frontier for us and for our Reform movement. Being in our “space” is no longer limited to being in our “building.” We are exploring the full and mutual benefits gained by expanding, and paying attention to,  the possibility of bringing the anchor of Jewish life to those who want it from afar.